XXII
I went the next day to tell Mollie. It was a Saturday, I remember, and it had rained; all the streets were wet.
Walter had stayed with me all the evening before, and I asked him not to come the next day. I felt that I must have a day in peace, without him, or anyone.
I sat in my room all the morning, and tried to read. In the afternoon I went out and walked about.
The trees were all green now, but it was not warm. Clouds had come up in the night, and the sky was still grey.
I meant to go to Mollie in time for tea; I was on the Embankment by half-past four, but I did not go in; I went to a tea shop instead, a little restaurant, not far from Mollie’s flat, where we had had lunch together very often before. I sat a long time over my tea. I shrank somehow from seeing Mollie and George; he would be there too on a Saturday afternoon. They might be out of course, but I did not think so, for it had been arranged before, or half arranged, that I should go there this afternoon.
I went out again, on to the Embankment; I walked along by the river, westward, past the Addingtons’ windows, towards the power station. The sun was beginning to go down, and the sky was all pink now, behind the four chimneys; the broad stretch of river where it bends, beyond Battersea Bridge, was pink too; a mist was coming up, with the tide, I suppose, from the sea, and the colours were dimmed and obscured by the greyness of the mist. A man came along with a stick, and lit the lamps, one lamp, and then two, and then three; it was quite light still, and the lamps looked small and rather foolish; I wondered why they lit the lamps so soon.
There was an old man selling flowers by the corner of Battersea Bridge; I had never seen him there before; he looked a very poor old man; I bought a bunch of narcissi from him; it cost a shilling.
I thought:
‘That is expensive, for a bunch of narcissi.’
I thought:
‘It is no good; I must go in and tell them; it is too late to go back; I must tell them now what I have done.’
I knocked on the door, and rang the bell. The woman from below opened it; she often did, and I went up.
There was a knocker on the door of Mollie’s room; it was the first door one came to in their part of the house. I knocked on the door with the knocker and walked in.
They were sitting beside the fire, George in his arm-chair, and Mollie on a cushion on the floor. There was tea on the table, pushed back again against the wall; they had finished tea, and were reading; the grey cat was with them, on the hearth-rug.
It was comfortable, and familiar, and homely. There were blue curtains in this room too, but there were patterns on them, blue and white, and the cushions on the chairs were red; it was a homelier room than Hugo’s, and the chairs came mostly from their old home in Manchester, ordinary sort of chairs, not straight deep shapes like his. There was a Persian carpet that had been in Manchester too, the ordinary blue and red sort of carpet, a pinkish red like the cushions; Hugo said they did not match it quite, and Mollie said she would change them, but she never did; and we got to like the cushions that did not quite match, and we would not have liked to have them changed.
‘We thought you were not coming,’ said Mollie, looking up from her book. George pulled up another chair for me.
I threw the bunch of narcissi into Mollie’s lap:
‘A peace offering,’ I said. ‘I meant to come sooner; I started out quite early after lunch.’
‘You’ve had tea?’ asked Mollie, and I said, yes, had.
George had his pipe; he always had; he took it out of his mouth, and held out his book.
‘Have you read it?’ he asked. ‘Awfully good!’
I looked at the book; it was Aksakov’s Memories of Childhood; I had not read it; I turned over the pages, and read bits of it, here and there. I said:
‘I came to tell you, really, that I am engaged to Walter Sebright.’
I did not look at either of them, only at the book.
‘What?’ said George, sitting up sharply.
Mollie said:
‘Oh, Helen!’
They were both looking at me; I knew it and pretended not to see. I felt as though I were going to cry, and was determined not to.
‘Do you mean that, Helen?’ Mollie asked very gently.
I said:
‘Yes; are you surprised?’
She said:
‘Yes; very much surprised; I didn’t expect it at all!’
I looked at George, but his face was turned away; he was staring at the fire, bending forwards, away from me.
I said:
‘Won’t you congratulate me, either of you?’ and my voice sounded odd, and jerky, even to myself, ‘Won’t you give me your good wishes?’
‘Yes . . . oh surely, all good wishes . . .’ Mollie said, ‘but . . .’ She hesitated and I saw her look at George. . . .
‘If you are going back now, I will go with you,’ George said abruptly.
He knew, of course, that I had not meant to go back then, for I had only just come. Mollie looked at him again, surprised, I thought, and anxious.
I nearly said: ‘I am not going back!’
But I wanted to get away, and somehow, too, I had to do what George wanted.
I said:
‘Yes, I am going back now; but you needn’t come.’
He got up from his chair and went to get his hat it was hanging up on the landing, outside the door. I stood up too. Mollie took both my hands in hers.
She said:
‘I wish you happiness with all my heart, you do know that, my dear!’
I nodded; I felt I could not speak without crying, and I did not want to cry.
George was waiting for me outside, at the top of the stairs; he waited for me to pass and then followed me down.
We crossed the road to the pavement by the river, and turned Eastward, towards the bridges and the trams. We passed the two bridges, and Oakley Street, where my bus for Kensington would run; we did not, either of us, think about that. We were walking very quickly, along the river; the lamps were all lit now, broad streaks of light lay out in front of each, across the wet pavement and the road.
‘It isn’t true, what you said just now?’ George asked at last.
I said:
‘Yes; why should it not be true?’
‘I can’t believe it is true!’
‘You mean that no one would want to marry me?’
‘No,’ he said quietly, ‘I don’t mean that.’
We walked along without speaking; we were nearly at Chelsea Bridge now.
George stopped walking, and turned round:
‘Does Hugo know?’ he asked.
I said:
‘No. I haven’t seen Hugo.’
He leaned his elbows on the stone parapet and looked straight in front of him, across the river.
‘You know, Helen,’ he said, ‘you must not do this; you can’t understand what you are doing; you haven’t thought.’
I said:
‘I am tired of thinking’
‘I know it is not my business; you can say it is nothing to do with me; but it is; Hugo . . . and you are the best friends I have; I can’t stand by and see you . . . and Hugo messing up your lives . . .’
His voice was very low; I had never heard George’s voice like this.
I thought:
‘How he loves Hugo! Why do we love him so?’
I said:
‘I thought you liked Sophia?’
He said:
‘I do like her.’
‘And you like Walter Sebright too; you said you did.’
‘I do,’ he said, ‘I like him too, but not for you.’
I said:
‘That is for me to judge.’
He said:
‘No, not now; you don’t know what you are doing. You are unhappy and angry, and . . . oh Helen, why do we beat about the bush? You and Hugo love each other far too well to marry other people? You know that . . . I know it . . . and Hugo knows it too!’
I said:
‘I don’t think Hugo does.’
‘He does . . . . I know he does. Give him time, Helen. He will never care for anyone as he does for you.’
I said:
‘He leaves it to you, to say!’
‘Can’t you wait a little while? Six months, or three months even . . . ? That is not very long to wait . . .’
I said:
‘I am sick of waiting. I don’t know even, that I want Hugo, now.’
George was silent; I knew how hard it must be for him to say these things, and I wanted to hurt him. There were sea gulls walking in the mud, at the edge of the river. They rose up in a cloud in front of us, calling and flapping their wings.
I said:
‘It is good of you to consider Hugo so much, but I don’t think he would be grateful to you.’
I said it in a hard, horrible voice.
George clasped his hands together; he clasped and unclasped his fingers, and said nothing at all.
I said:
‘I suppose you think I should wait for ever, on the chance of Hugo’s wanting me some day? You don’t mind what happens to me?’
I can’t bear now to think how I spoke to George; it was as though a devil was in me. I did not mean what I said, and I knew that I did not mean it; I would have waited for Hugo always, if I had thought he would want me ever; but I did not think so. That was not George’s fault.
George said:
‘I did not mean that, Helen. You know, surely, that I did not. Do you think I should have said all this, if I did not mind what happened to you?
‘It is not fair to Sebright,’ he said abruptly, ‘to marry him like this.’
I said:
‘That is his affair, and mine; you had better leave it alone.’
We walked on again; past Chelsea Bridge, and along Grosvenor Road. There was no parapet here, only railings, and the river showed through the iron bars, with the lamplight on it. Across the water, where the wharfs and warehouses are, there were more lights, and a noise of hammering. A train went past with lighted windows, across the railway bridge. I did not ask George to leave me; I did not want him to go. Twice I looked round at him.
‘Why does he mind so much?’ I wondered. ‘It is wonderful to mind so much about other people.’
I said once:
‘It is very dark for April.’
He said:
‘Yes, it is getting late.’
Lorries went past us, a train of lorries, with iron girders on them. There was a Salvation Army meeting at the corner of a street.
I said:
‘I should like to be religious.’
George said:
‘So should I.’
I wished already, that I had been kinder to George. I knew how hard it must have been for him to say all that to me. I was grateful to him for caring about it at all.
We had left the river now, and were walking through streets with more warehouses and yards. We came out soon to Westminster, and crossed the wide space in front of the Houses of Parliament. We stood and waited for a bus.
George said:
‘Forgive me, Helen. I am afraid I have made it worse. I am sorry, if I have.’
I wanted to say:
‘Forgive me, George. I love you for what you said. It was dear and brave of you to say it. It was like you, George.’
But there were people all round, near us, and my bus was coming, round the corner, and across to where we stood.
I only said:
‘It’s all right; you haven’t a bit. Good-bye.’
I held out my hand, and George took it.
Then I climbed up on to my bus, and went up the steps to the top. I turned round to wave to him again, but he did not see me. He was standing quite still, where I had left him, staring in front of him at the road.